So yeah, I thought it was totally atrocious in many missions, such as the Dreadnought in Retribution (near the engines) and near the start of Mission 7 of the expansion. I'm trying to find out for a review if anyone knows of a way to cause that not to happen? It's absolutely insane. I'm going to give it an epilepsy warning in case there's nothing you can do to reliably disable it. I already went through the in-game options and command line options. Don't think those have it.

If it's part of the game, it's probably not easy. However, if it's an issue with rendering then a source port would probably solve the issue.

Descent 3 does actually come with an epilepsy warning on the original box. Unfortunately I think the flickering cannot be stopped, though I did somehow think there was a command line for it - it would seem there isn't.

Or are you talking about a graphic bug? Maybe turn off the fog as that is a glitch on some cards. Failing that, try changing to a different renderer in the setup. Also here are some useful command switches for D3:

-usesmoothing -nomultitexture -himem -hividmem -subpixelcorrect -nocompress -nointro -nooutragelogo -nosparkles -nomotionblur -z32bit

Thanks Hunter-Zero! I did mean flickering, very rapid flickering from total black to total light. It's in such bad tastes...I've listed some of those commands in my review of the main game, now working on one for the expansion.

Also, I recommend the OpenGL patch which improves the texture quality on newer machines: You can get that here: https://sectorgame.com/d3/downloads/?nav=display&file=864 - You can definitely set higher resolutions with this (up to about 1920x) but the FOV will be cut a little bit in widescreen (use the + and - keys to adjust viewbox). Also be wary of high framecaps (best to use 60)

Btw you can turn off dynamic lighting in the options menu, that will help with weapons-generated flicker or objects that cause flickering light.

In your review you mentioned the music, that is indeed a bug where it turns off. Simply go into options during the game (F2) and turn the music to 0%, exit the menu, then again put the volume up and the music will restart. Another option is to use quicksave and reload that save. I think it's a bug that cropped up after hardware support for D3 started to fizzle out in the early 2000's.

The lower framecap helps reduce crashing in OpenGL, usually due to particle effects.

Btw there are some great single-player levels to try out alongside Mercenary. I recommend:

Reactor Gamma
Army of Haloon (5 levels)
Roth 513
Arillen Po

And I recently released a level called 'Omens' which has a lot of Overload-style customizations.

You can find all of these on that site under single-player missions :)

I will at least mention that stuff in the reviews... thanks again!

Actually, what can you tell me about this all-in-one patch? Is it to be recommended?

http://www.dateiliste.com/en/descent-3/26-descent-3-installation-updates-and-modifications/120-download-the-full-version-of-descent-3.html

My review is mostly finished: you've been very helpful Hunter. If you find the time (it's officially coming out in about 5 days), feel free to comment on it!

http://homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?id=5337&a

It's not an official package, it's basically a compilation of levels/mods in one package but to be honest I'd avoid it unless you want to clutter up your D3 installation with tons of old stuff. The GOG version is pre-patched, and if you need OpenGL use the 32-bit patch.

Btw the music is by Jerry Berlongieri for both games. Who is Julian Soule ? :)

Also I recommend Moons Descendarium for tips and tricks, you'll learn a lot of nice little things you can use to get through the levels on higher difficulties.

I couldn't find any mention of the composer on MobyGames (credits for Mercenary), other than Julian Soule. Apparently, Julian did the intro video music. He's also done some other popular games, though slightly less high-key than Jeremy Soule. Anyway, fixed that and included the Descendarium link too!

Tim Jones did the cinematic music. Jerry Berlongieri did all of the in-game music and sound effects.
I'm guessing Julian Soule just did the Merc intro.

Wanna do some co-op sometime? :)

I just sent a friend invite.